In the theater, we don't talk about soccer or, better yet, we don't act soccer. It's an unwritten but ironclad convention: it's part of the rich baggage of superstitions that theater people carry with them. Talking about soccer on stage is not a good omen. This explains the reason why it is so rare to find direct references to the world of soccer in the history of drama, even if in recent times there have been several successful plays about soccer and their characters, written by Claudio de Palma and Peppe Servillo. The reasons for this jinxing reputation of soccer on stage are not known, just as the causes of similar beliefs are often unknown.
But the languages of the two arts are osmotic and if football has borrowed show, precisely, but also director, extra, backup, debut, soloist, orchestra, – football has taken away concrete space from the theatre: both in terms of audience recruitment and in terms of real development of spectacular research. Here in Naples, the kingdom of both football and theatre, the 54th edition of the European Theatre Championship was held, organized by the Teatro Stabile Saverio Mercadante and the Gruppo Calcio Teatro alla Scala, outgoing champion.
Twelve very aggressive teams battled it out in a single day on the youth fields of Calcio Napoli, divided into two groups, with clashes lasting twenty minutes each. The final was won by two foreign teams, the Grand Theatre of the Opera of Poznan, which won the tournament, and the Slovene National Theater of Maribor. An absolute revelation, making its debut in the event, was the team of the Teatro Municipale Giuseppe Verdi of Salerno, under the orders of coach Antonio Senatore I flute of the orchestra and a very determined president Antonio Marzullo, right-hand man of Daniel Oren.
“An unexpected fifth place – declared the coach – came with a roster of only twenty players. Ours is a small theater compared to other Italian and foreign top teams and we achieved this result from the toughest group, from which the two finalist teams emerged. A result that is in the hands and gloves of our goalkeeper, the oboist Antonio Rufo, a real rolling shutter, awarded as the best goalkeeper of the tournament, the goals of Sabatino Procida, those of the penalty taker Bruno Gagliardi and the finesse on a corner kick of the flautist Andrea Ronca directly into the net from the corner flag, the famous Olympic goal, on the trail of Ferenc Puskas, Massimo Palanca and Maradona, to then win on penalties the final for fifth place with our Viennese colleagues, thanks to penalties, in addition to Gagliardi's goals, scored by Fabrizio Giordano, Giuseppe Melillo and Pietro Di Bianco”.
“I am very happy to have participated in this day – declared Antonio Marzullo – It's a shame that only this year we were able to participate, but from this edition onwards we will never miss our presence. This placement close to the podium is worth a victory and above all having spent a day between music and sport, which we will repeat in September in Salerno with an invitational hexagonal tournament at the end of the summer".
Looking through the scoresheets of the matches played by our best player, we had some great clashes with the San Carlo theatre of Naples, the derby par excellence, in which we played a match with a bit of expectation, fearful for the debut, then the first defeat with Slovene National Theater of Maribor, with the first penalty saved by Antonio Rufo, in a truly manly match where our oboist Pietro Avallone on the wing was inundated with really rough foul interventions.
Then a clear one-nil at the Carlo Felice in Genoa with a goal by Sabatino Procida, a dry two-nil at the Teatro Regio in Turin with goals by Gagliardi from a penalty and Andrea Ronca headed from the corner, then the peremptory defeat against the Grand Theatre of the Opera in Poznan by four-nil, a team that practically sent the entire midfield, already unfortunately not congruent, to the infirmary and seriously so, with the competitive anger of professionals, which both the Polish and Slovenian teams were well stuffed with, insertions that should be monitored carefully, suffered mostly by the cellist Matteo Parisi, who ended the day with a fractured elbow and a very serious sprained ankle.
Coach Antonio Senatore used a dynamic 3-5-2 for all the matches and only with Carlo Felice, in possession of two brilliant elements, who had to be marked man-to-man, the 4-4-2. A team that Salerno must be mentioned in all its elements, Mattia Abate, Pietro Avallone, exceptional on the wings in the final, Sergio Caggiano, Raffaele D'Andria, Sergio De Castris, Pietro Bianco, Vittorio Fusco, Michele Galluzzi, Fabrizio Giordano, Giuseppe Melillo, Matteo Parisi, Antonio Pepe, Fernando Pires Camargo, Sabatino Procida, who was entrusted with the captain's armband, Vincenzo Meriani, Andrea Ronca, Antonio Rufo, Gerardo Ungaro, Bruno Gagliardi and Giovanni Sanarico.
The awards ceremony on the sidelines saw the team from the Grand Theatre of the Opera of Poznan crowned winners, followed by the Slovene National Theater of Maribor, third was the team from the Teatro Alla Scala, fourth was the Teatro Lirico of Cagliari, fifth was the Giuseppe Verdi of Salerno, sixth was the Staatz Opera of Vienna, seventh was the Carlo Felice of Genoa, eighth was the Fenice of Venice, ninth was the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, tenth was the Teatro di San Carlo, eleventh was the Regio of Turin and twelfth was the Teatro Stabile of Naples, also the organizer on site, Saverio Mercadante, with the best player of the tournament being Andrea Venesia of the Teatro Scaligero and the very strong Krzystof Bartoszak no. 20 of the Polish team, top scorer.
A long-awaited convivial moment to follow, the pinnacle of a satisfying organization signed by Luca Papalica and his Sport-X with live filming and commentary in the stands, with the refereeing being the only flaw due to the lack of a full trio and not very mobile judges, able to evaluate offsides, fouls and penalties. See you on the Viennese fields for May 2025st XNUMX which will greet the LV edition (music in the grimace!) and in Salerno at the end of the summer for the approaching hexagonal.
Article published on May 4, 2024 - 11:21 pm
Video Chronicles
